The Marketing Agency Talk

I was more amused than angry when a friend said “You people in the advertising are to be blamed for excessive spending. What’s average will look great after you guys wrote it, photographed it, and designed it. I almost max out my credit limit last month.”

I actually laughed, that’s what advertising is all about. We help our client to distinguish what differentiated them from the competitors. We highlight their USPs to the whole world with a loud bang plus confetti, balloons and all the works thrown in. An ad that cannot translate into sales is a bad ad.

But, really, who is to be blamed? The ad or the spender? I should think it’s the latter. The spender has a choice to use or not to use his/her credit card.

Credit card is a great tool to help us manage our finances and buy the things we want. But when things get out of hand, and we are burdened with credit card debt, what should we do? Blame advertising? Blame ourselves? Blaming at this stage helps no one. The most viable solution is to pay up the debts as fast as we can with an affordable interest.

Choosing a personal loan as a way to consolidate those bills will help to reduce the interest rates and set up a fixed amount of payment. Reduced interest rates will ultimately increase the amount of money we keep and a fixed amount due every month will help us plan our budget. Most people don’t like to take up loans. However, we all know that getting out of debt help to overturn the bleak situation. Now, instead of having several credit card bills at a high interest rate due by the end of the month, we now have one bill that is due once a month at a lower rate. This is called debt consolidation. There are 2 reasons for doing this:

• Firstly, we will save a lot of money on interest rates. In fact the interest rates might be as much as half of regular credit card interest rates.
• Secondly, we will get one bill with a fixed amount due every month rather than several bills with several amounts due throughout the month. This will help us budget.

For those in residing in United Kingdom, they might even want to consider an IVA. Introduced in the mid 1980s, IVA stands for Individual Voluntary Arrangement. The borrower and creditor will enter a contract with regards to repayment of a debt. IVA is an alternative to declaring bankruptcy, providing those in heavy debts with the means to make more affordable repayments, reducing debt levels, and protecting assets.

Advertising is an art of persuasion. So, if you tend to buy with emotion and try to justify with reasons later, I would suggest that you leave your credit cards at home when you go shopping. You will find it harder to part with cold hard cash. Actually, the best option is to re-examine your attitude towards money and money management.

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